1. Field of the Invention
The present invention pertains to the art of appliances and, more particularly, to a fastening system for use in interconnecting, during varying stages of an overall assembly process, main and trim components of an overall appliance cabinet.
2. Discussion of the Prior Art
In constructing an appliance cabinet, particularly a refrigerator cabinet, it is highly desirable to simplify the overall assembly of the cabinet to reduce manufacturing costs, yet it is imperative that the cabinet be structurally sound in order to counteract loads exerted thereon during use of the appliance. Mainly due to cost efficiencies and flexibility in workmanship, it has been commonplace to utilize sheet metal in the forming of most refrigerator cabinets in the market today. Since the sheet metal is thin and rather high loads are often placed on the cabinet, particularly by the opening and closing of a weighted down refrigerator door, a fair amount of effort has been applied in this art to provide reinforcement for such a refrigerator cabinet. Of course, an additional concern is the ease of assembly of the cabinet as a whole.
With this in mind, it has heretofore been proposed to form the sides and top of a refrigerator cabinet shell out of a single piece of bent sheet metal and then attach rear and bottom walls. Thereafter, the shell is structurally reinforced in an attempt to avoid deformation during use. Such known reinforcing arrangements generally take the form of either providing multiple, individually secured reinforcement members or a unitary reinforcing frame at a front opening of the cabinet shell. At least the sides of the shell are attached to the frame to integrate the overall assembly. To perform this assembly operation, either various holes provided in both the cabinet shell and the reinforcement member(s) must be aligned to receive mechanical fasteners or systematic welding operations are performed. In either case, these connections are designed to perform the sole function of interconnecting the shell to the reinforcement structure.
In today's market, it is becoming more popular to recess refrigerators between adjacent cabinetry or the like in a kitchen area in order to provide a built-in look which is considered aesthetically appealing. Since front doors of a refrigerator must be spaced from any adjacent structure in order to enable the free pivoting of the doors, the refrigerator must project from the adjacent structure to some degree. Unfortunately, the projecting of the refrigerator cabinet in this manner exposes, to a certain degree, frontal portions of the side walls of the cabinet which is considered to detract from the built-in appearance.
To compensate for this negative effect, it has been proposed to provide cosmetic trim pieces along exposed side portions of the cabinet to blend the sides with the adjacent structure. In such known arrangements, the trim pieces are individually attached to the cabinet shell through slip-fit or dedicated mechanical connections. Since both sides of the shell and the trim pieces need to be attached to the frame structure, all at a frontal peripheral portion of the cabinet shell, a fairly high number of connection locations need to be defined in a relatively small zone which can adversely affect the structural integrity. In addition, the need for the unrelated connections in this peripheral portion simply adds to the overall assembly time.
Based on the above, there exists a need in the art for an improved assembly arrangement for a refrigerator cabinet which minimizes the cost and time associated with connecting both side portions of a shell to one or more frontal frame members and trim pieces to the side portions.